To some, in a land far away, Rosa was born.

Despite being a woman of color, she grew up in an area devoid of racism and prejudice. However, because it was a nice neighborhood, more people moved in, which in turn caused rents and housing prices to rise. This once diverse neighborhood she had known all of her life started to disappear, with her close friends like Maeve moving out, and new families she had not seen before settling in. By the end of this process, Rosa and her family were one of the only dark families of color in the town.

Also, because the rent became so high, Rosa's mother had to work another 2 jobs, even though she was paid fairly well as an accountant at a medium-sized agency. And due to her mother always working, Rosa was left mostly to herself only seeing her mother on late nights when she would be up late studying for tests or doing homework. And to help her mother with the rent, Rosa worked/attended to her landlord and their family. In this family, there was Catherine (Mother), and her two daughters Elizabeth and Victoria.

To summarize the family, Catherine earned all of her money from her renters, but charged Rosa's the most, she wanted them gone. And while Rosa on weekends and after school worked tirelessly on the shrubs and sweeping the outside apartment decks, Victoria and Elizabeth were preoccupied with extracurriculars, such as Cheerleading and Student Government; they even did SAT classes on weekends. They both had a bright future because of Catherine and her money, Rosa did not, for the same reason.

One day, a US Diplomat (Lucas) came to the local high school, where Rosa, Victoria and Elizabeth had attended and given an inspiring presentation about life in the foreign service, and Washington DC. Everyone in the school auditorium listened intently, especially the three girls and Maeve (Rosa's good friend). Maeve lived far from everyone else from the school since her family could not stay close due to the high rent; she had a one hour commute each way. When the presentation ended, almost everyone rushed to the front to talk to Lucas, forcing Maeve to immediately leave (She wanted to talk to him, but she couldn't be late to her train). Victoria and Elizabeth were the first to talk to Lucas and took the longest time to speak with him. However, he cut them off when he saw Rosa sitting alone, and joined her.

"What are you doing sitting here all alone?" he asked her, "did you want to ask me any questions?". "Well, I wanted to ask about the process, to see if someone like me could do it" she stated. How could a girl with her background and situation achieve something so great she thought.

Lucas while going through the details of the process, remembered something important. "Say, St. Matthew's College has this great Foreign Service program that would actually let you skip this process, you seem smart, you should take it. It's this Saturday at 2 pm here". Rosa nodded silently because she really only saw this as a dream.

When she got home, Catherine was very angry, "How dare you stay so late!" she yelled. "The floors have never been so dusty today, and there is too much work to be done!" "What is that!" she said as she saw a pamphlet Lucas gave Rosa. After reading it, she started laughing hysterically. "How could you think you could possibly do this? Look at you, the only thing you'll amount to is a maid! How do you think you could get into a good program like this! You barely even fit in here" she said. "Victoria, Elizabeth, come, you're going to take this test on Saturday. And you Rosa, will be here, doing laundry, and making up the beds. Now get to work!". Rosa scattered to the basement and started dusting there. It was one of the only places where she could be alone in peace.

However, Rosa's mother, Claudia, got wind of this and demanded her daughter to go, to have a better future, to be better than herself because people like Rosa were the future. The only other obstacle to this was that Rosa would need to be back by 5 pm since Catherine would be back by then.

And so Rosa studied every day as much as she could for 4 days aced the test on Saturday, soaring through it, and answering the questions better and faster than any of her white counterparts. Just as she finished the test, she saw Maeve quickly stand up and leave (she didn't finish her test as she was called into work). And just as Rosa signed her cursive signature, she noticed it was 4:50 pm, it was time to head home. She ran out of the test room fast but had forgotten to sign her name in print. By the time Lucas had noticed this, Rosa already left his line of sight.

Rosa, in the end, scored the highest out of everyone else, and because of this, Lucas went door to door, having each boy and girl do a signature, to see if it matched Rosa's. He eventually entered the premises of Catherine and her daughters. Elizabeth and Victoria tried to see the signature before replicating it but failed to do so. When their signatures did not match, they raised a commotion, causing Rosa to come outside. Lucas immediately recognized her and had her sign her name. As a senior in high school during the spring semester, she was accepted to the Foreign Service program at the college for the fall.

But what about Maeve? What about the people who could not withstand the high rents of the district, the ones who were essentially left behind? Sure, Rosa became successful, but what of Maeve, and the other minorities like her? Is this honestly a happy ending when one is thinking about those who have been left behind, especially in American Society.

For Further Reading:

The Case for Reparations: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/...

Harlem Gentrification: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/13/ha...

Bay Area Gentrification: https://www.sfgate.com/living/article/gentrificati...